CFP: [Cultural-Historical] Journal issue on Steampunk

Neo-Victorian Studies invites papers and/or abstracts for a 2009 specialissue on neo-Victorianismâ€™s engagement with science and new/oldtechnologies, especially as articulated through the genre of Steampunk. Asa lifestyle, aesthetic and literary movement, Steampunk can be both the actof modding your laptop to look like and function as a Victorian artefactand an act of (re-)imagining a London in which Charles Babbageâ€™s analyticalengine was realised. Steampunk includes applications of nineteenth-centuryaesthetics to contemporary objects; speculative extensions of technologiesthat actually existed; and the anachronistic importation of contemporaryscience into fictionalised pasts and projected futures. In all cases,Steampunk blurs boundaries: between centuries, between technologies, andbetween â€œthoseâ€ Victorians and â€œusâ€ neo-Victorians. This special issue willexplore why particular scientific and technological developments arerevisited at particular historical moments and trace Steampunkâ€™s importanceto neo-Victorianism, as well as its wider cultural implications.

Deadline for submissions of completed papers: 1 June 2009

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):* Steampunk and the importation/transformation of Victorian aestheticsâ€¢Changing narrative â€œtechnologiesâ€ in Victorian/neo-Victorian fictionâ€¢markets and economics of the Steampunk universeâ€¢science and environmental politicsâ€¢Steampunk and the myths of the Industrial Revolutionâ€¢redefining the human: intersections with cyberpunkâ€¢Steampunk and old/new/lost world empire(s)â€¢the terrors of Steampunk in a post-9/11 worldâ€¢historicising the Steampunk phenomenonâ€¢gender constructions in Steampunk art, literature, and practiceâ€¢mad geniuses: scientists, inventors, doctors, engineersâ€¢Steampunk pasts and futures (e.g. The Difference Engine vs. The Diamond Age)â€¢ modding and maker practices: objects and (neo-)Victorian materialismâ€¢real and imagined difference enginesâ€¢scientific (im)practicalities of Steampunk contraptionsâ€¢visual Steampunk vs. narrative Steampunk (e.g. graphic novels or moviesvs. novels)â€¢cosplay and conventions